The Queer City Cab Company
2008
In this performance, I hired myself (and my car) out as an underground taxi for the duration of the Queer City festival. Following in the tradition of gay cabs that have operated on and off in large cities such as New York, San Francisco and London for the past 4 decades, I offered safe, courteous passage to festival patrons needing to get to or from Queer City events and social gatherings, or to anyone needing my services during the run of the performance.
Outfitted with all the trappings of a tasteful gay bar bathroom – condoms, lube, a selection of queer reading material, old cigarette burns –The Queer City Cab Company was a performance art project masquerading as a volunteer designated driving service catering to the queer community. Passengers were offered the opportunity to select appropriate gay mood music to suit their journey, with selections such as “throbbing club hits,” “Broadway musical masterpieces,” “gay cabaret,” and “lesbian heartbreak favorites.” As a proponent of harm reduction, I operated the cab as a nonjudgmental space. Passengers were meant to feel free to engage in any conversation or activity without fear of reprisal so long as it didn’t interfere with the safe operation of the vehicle or the safety of those within it. Tastefully demure on the outside, the cab was decked out on the inside like a gay gypsy caravan, replete with disco balls, chandeliers, paper flowers, tassels, decadent drapery and throw pillows. Provided gratis to its passengers was everything needed to ensure a safe and comfortable ride, including the aforementioned condoms and lube, but also female condoms, dental dams, alcohol swabs and sharps disposal, hand sanitizer, mouthwash, breath mints, cough drops, lighters, pens, disability pride packs, and dozens of different brochures covering topics such as safer sex for trans folk, coming out, transphobia, same-sex partner abuse, homophobia in the workplace, safer BDSM, and safer sex toy use.
The project also addresses the body, and the concept of queering the body – drawing parallels between queer, fat, and dis/abled bodies and discourses (medicalization, culture).
Forwarding my own interests in queerness fatness, and disability, I also bring to this project a dialogue about the taboo of driving. In queer, art, activist, and left-leaning communities, driving is something to be ashamed of. Walking/wheeling, cycling, and public transportation are the only acceptable modes for many, who shame those who don’t or can’t share their lifestyle. But for many fat people (and many disabled, elderly and others), walking/wheeling long distances, cycling or public transportation are impossible, unfeasible or inaccessible. Some people live outside the city, others live miles from the nearest grocery store. Just as sneering at a fat person for eating in public is offensive, assuming a fat driver doesn’t exercise or isn’t healthy is misguided (as is assuming a fat disabled person’s fatness is the cause of their disability). The QCCCC especially welcomes fabulous fat passengers, and others with mobility issues.
Underground gay cab services were started to provide transportation to those (primarily male) patrons of early gay bars who had trouble finding a ride because taxis refused to service the establishments they frequented or worse, they were subjected to violent gaybashing by homophobic drivers. These underground cabs provided not only safe modes of transportation for clubbers, but a very permissive space for sexual contact where there were few other places for same-sex couples to discreetly hook up for brief encounters.
Underground queer cabs still exist in larger cities, and in general these days, there are more options open to the queer community for safe transportation and intimate rendezvous, but on the lonely late-night streets of town, many flamboyantly-dressed, gender variant or amorous same-sex couples still fear the threat of hostility and violence, especially those who are visibly non-normative in other ways.
Queer youth have the same need as adults for community but reduced access to transportation since they are less likely to drive, and may not find support for attending queer events in their family, a main source of transportation for many youth.
There are other issues to take into account on the prairies; our cities have wide streets and sprawling layouts; there can be long distances between destinations that are not easily walkable (especially in winter) and that aren’t well-serviced by transit (not to mention the barriers to accessibility people with disabilities face in the city every day). The QCCCC provides a safe space to escape the street whether to catch a ride or a quickie.
As a non-judgmental, safe, harm-reduction space, the Queer City Cab Company acknowledges the predominantly invisible sexuality of queer and non-normative bodies in all their forms and celebrates desire in and for all people.